Theatre / State of the Union

Edit Locked

"You politicians have stayed professionals only because the voters have remained amateurs."

State of the Union was originally a 1945 stage play written by Russel Crouse and Howard Lindsay. In 1948 it was adapted into a feature film by Frank Capra, the second and last film he directed for Liberty Films, starring Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, and Van Johnson.

Grant Matthews (Tracy) is an industrialist with an aircraft manufacturing business. His lover, newspaper magnate Kay Thorndyke (Angela Lansbury), convinces him to run for the Republican nomination for President. Thorndyke and her political guru Jim Conover (Adolphe Menjou) are initally nervous about how Matthews' semi-estranged wife Mary (Hepburn) is going to react. Mary proves surprisingly enthusiastic about Grant's campaign, and she grows even more so when Grant comes out shooting from the hip on the campaign trail, telling hard truths to labor interests and capital interests and whoever else will listen. This proves wildly popular with the common folk, but Conover and Thorndyke, who are worried about getting the nomination for Grant at the Republican convention, wind up convincing him to cast his principles aside and make a series of sleazy backdoor promises in order to win the nomination and the White House.

The original story was inspired by businessman and attorney Wendell Willkie's surprise candidacy that won the Republican nomination in 1940.

Tropes:

Age Lift: Katherine "Kay" Thorndyke is a divorcée "in her late thirties," according to the play script. The film version cast Angela Lansbury in her early twenties and added a new opening scene to establish Miss Thorndyke as a young heiress.

Aluminum Christmas Trees: A latter-day viewer may wonder why Conover is so monomaniacal about gaining the support of party power-brokers and is contemptuous of Grant's support with voters. The answer is at in those days, as had been the case throughout history and would still be true for a couple more decades, the party nominating process was controlled by power brokers. Party primaries did exist but in Real Life candidates really were nominated by people controlling blocks of delegates at conventions.

Ambition Is Evil: Played with. Simply wanting to be President isn't inherently wrong, as Grant's goals are noble and Mary is proud to support him. But the compromises Grant feels he has to make to win the nomination corrupt him.

Blonde Republican Sex Kitten: Kay Thorndyke, the movie version at least, might be the Trope Maker. She's blonde, she's very sexy, and she's a Republican power broker, bitter that her father was abandoned by the party, determined to elect Grant to the White House with her pulling the strings.

Chekhov's Gunman: During the buildup to Grant's big televised speech, the camera takes care to show a random crewman who keeps looking intently at Grant as he's waiting to go on. When Grant veers wildly off script, attacking all the corrupt politicians and cynical power brokers who have been manipulating him, the random crewman steps forward to ask his Armor-Piercing Question, "Are you any better than they are?" Grant then admits that no, he's actually worse, because all the venal political hacks around him were after whatever they could get, while he was a Hypocrite who acted like he was working for the greater good.

The Corrupter: Kay and Conover, who light the fire of ambition in Grant and get him to throw away his principles and become another weaselly politician.

Deadpan Snarker: Spike McManus, the reporter hired by Conover to work for Matthews, gets off a lot of excellent lines.

Grant: When I was a kid my dad took me on a two-day trip just to look at President Taft. Spike: On a clear day you could see him for a couple of hundred miles.

The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: In the opening scene where Kay meets her dying father, he talks about something "eatin' my guts away", and he says a little bit later that he can't stand the pain anymore. The word "cancer" is not mentioned.

Double Meaning Title: Besides the political meaning, "Union" also describes Grant and Mary's marriage, as shown when Mary disavows a reconciliation with Grant by saying "the state of our union is strictly political."

Drink Order: Spike tells the Matthews' butler what drinks should be served: Judge Alexander (a Southerner) will "probably stick to straight bourbon"; his Lady Drunk wife requests Sazeracs and a lot of them.

Driving a Desk: Flying a desk, and very noticeable in the scene where Grant is supposedly doing barrel rolls and inverting his plane, and stuff that should be falling to the ceiling isn't.

Election Day Episode: Sort of. The whole plot is about campaigning for the Republican nomination, but Grant quits the race before the convention.

Graceful Loser: When Grant's fiery speech and withdrawal from the race makes it clear that the game is up, Kay and Conover walk out without saying a word, Conover yammering in Kay's ear about some other political hopeful.

Title Drop: Mary asks Jim "What's the state of the Union? What are you reports on Grant?"

Vice President Who?: An irritated Mary forces Grant to sleep on the floor, but not before sarcastically saying "Good night, Mr. President!" The play's Act One ends on that line, but in the movie, Grant shoots back with "You mean Mr. Vice President, don't you?"

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy